The two candidates in Ventura County's hottest partisan race this June -- the 35th Assembly District Democratic primary -- each spoke to the Oxnard Democratic club last week, and as is customary in party primaries there weren't a lot of evident differences between them on most issues.
Susan Jordan and Das Williams each said the state needs to change the two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget, argued for more funding for education, said the state's safety net should be preserved, and suggested the Legislature should look at some targeted tax increases to balance the billions in budget cuts that lie ahead.
But there is one issue that clearly divides them: Williams supports a proposed deal that would allow the Texas-based PXP oil company to drill into state waters from its existing platform in federal waters; Jordan strongly opposes it.
The issue has divided environmentalists. The deal, negotiated by the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara, is favored by some traditional offshore oil foes because they believe it would lay the foundation for the ultimate end of all drilling off the Santa Barbara County shore. That's because PXP, in a negotiated agreement with the EDC, has promised to put time limits on its operations and to dismantle one offshore platform and all of its onshore processing infrastructure after a period of years.
Williams was urged to run by the groups the EDC represents, angered that Jordan took a lead role in blocking the deal when it came before the State Lands Commission in early 2009.
Now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ensured that the issue will still be in play at the time of the June primary. He has proposed that advance royalties from PXP will make up the entire general fund portion of funding for state parks. Unless the Lands Commission reconsiders and approves the deal, he says, there will be no money for parks.
It should set up an interesting test of the oil-drilling sentiments of Democratic primary voters on the Central Coast.
There are more than 100 environmental groups against this secretive deal between Texas-based oil company PXP and the EDC. The blog Calbuzz recently leaked the details and it turns out the EDC has been paid $100,000 to promote it. I have some trouble with a non-profit environmental group being paid by an oil company to promote a deal which will open state waters to oil drilling for the first time in 40 years.
When the State Lands Commission reviewed the proposed lease, both staff counsel and the Attorney General’s office determined that the end dates proposed by PXP were unenforceable. Because of that critical flaw and other concerns, the SLC justifiably determined the PXP proposal was not in the best interest of the state and denied the lease. Then Arnold brought it back up and it was shot down again by the Assembly.
Yet Das Williams supports this plan opposed by more than 100 environmental groups statewide, the Assembly and the California Democratic Party.
As the veteran journalists over at Calbuzz wrote, "four decades of principled opposition to new offshore oil drilling is precedent we’d be loathe to see California forfeit on a risky bet that oil companies would willingly stop drilling for oil."
Worse, it's now started a domino chain of events. Chuck DeVore's new proposed legislation will open up drilling up and down the coast and bypass normal environmental review. It's obvious he based his legislation on the PXP plan. It's PXP on steroids.
So even if the EDC manages to really get a platform torn down many, many years from now, they have opened a Pandora's box. This was a naive move on their part.
Back to Susan and Das. Even if you are pro-oil drilling, you need to appreciate the courage of this woman who risked the outcome of her first political race to stand up for what she believed in. By pointing out serious flaws in the PXP agreement she incurred the wrath of the EDC and Das took the opportunity to jump into a race in which he told many media outlets he wasn't going to enter while all the while praising Susan's statewide work and credentials.
We don't see many politicians these days who will stand up for what they believe in and risk their political careers doing it. That's exactly why I am in Susan Jordan's camp. We need more of this in Sacramento today.
Das' supporting offshore oil drilling while claiming to be against it reminds me of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is a completely bogus utterly ridiculous position that isn't a logical strategy even if it were true!
First of all, more offshore oil drilling doesn't end offshore oil drilling it sets the precedent for ..... additional offshore oil drilling.
Yet Das isn't even correct that a little offshore oil drilling will somehow lead to an end of offshore oil drilling. Both the California Attorney General and the California State Lands Commission have now ruled that Das is just plain wrong on the point.
Now Das has only the governor and hard core Republicans to support his efforts to 'drill baby drill.' Why is he in the Democratic primary?
How can one compare Das and Susan. What, other than support OCS drilling, has Das done? Susan and an incomperable record on the environment from the Toll Road, to marine mammals and sound, and of course LNG. If not for Susan that would never have been killed. Will Oxnard residents simply forget that? I doubt it. I also doubt they won't be fooled by the lies surrounding the PXP deal, It is not enforceable and now that the agreement is public we see that we have been lied to about many aspects of the deal. We shouldn't be surprised by that, the perverse logic that one can end drilling by allowing new drilling never made any sense to anyon who wasn't receiving support from the oil industry
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